The morning light, thin and bruised, revealed the full scale of desolation. Kael, huddled in the overturned cargo container, watched the dust motes dance. Elian whimpered beside him, a soft, persistent sound that tore at Kael's raw nerves. The baby was hungry. Kael was hungry.
The emptiness in his stomach gnawed, a familiar ache now amplified by the terrifying new responsibility. He had to find food. Water.
He pushed himself from the cramped space. His small body stiff. His left eye, still throbbing from the shard that had pierced it, was a dull ache. He blinked rapidly with his right eye, adjusting to the hazy light.
Dirtspire was a wasteland. Huts were flattened. Pathways were choked with rubble. The air still carried the faint, metallic scent of burnt blood and despair.
He still held the rusted blade. It felt impossibly heavy in his small hand. A burden, yet also his only companion.
He started walking. Not with purpose, but with a desperate, primitive urge. Survival. He clutched Elian tightly in one arm, the baby's cries a constant, painful reminder.
His bare feet crunched on debris. Shards of glass. Twisted metal. Every step was a small agony. He scanned the ruins. For anything. A discarded food packet. A drip of water.
He passed silent figures. Still and broken. He didn't look at them directly. His gaze slid over their vacant stares. His mind, in its terror, refused to fully process the horror.
He found a crushed building. Its walls blown inward. Inside, among the splintered furniture and shattered remnants, a faint glint caught his eye.
A metal flask. Half-buried under a broken cabinet.
Hope, a tiny, fragile spark, flickered in Kael. He scrambled towards it. Pushing aside splintered wood. His fingers, small and clumsy, scrabbled at the dirt.
He pulled it free. It was dented. Grimy. But sealed. He shook it. A faint slosh. Water.
He fumbled with the cap. It was stiff. He pulled. Twisted. Nothing. His small hands were weak.
Elian's cries intensified. A raw, desperate wail.
Kael roared in frustration. A guttural sound, alien and raw, escaping his child's throat. He slammed the flask against the ground. Again. And again. Desperation fueled him.
Finally, with a loud POP, the cap flew off. Water, murky and cold, sloshed out.
He brought it to Elian's lips. The baby suckled frantically. Kael watched, a fierce, primal satisfaction blooming in his chest. His brother was drinking. He had found water.
He took a small sip himself. It tasted like metal and dust. But it was wet. It was life.
The thirst was quenched. Now, hunger.
He spent the rest of the day scavenging. Through the ruins of what had once been Dirtspire's market district. He found nothing. Only debris. More bodies.
The setting of the artificial sun brought a deeper chill. He needed shelter for the night. The cargo container. He began the long, arduous journey back.
As darkness pressed in, Kael moved through a narrow alley. It was choked with refuse. A dark, winding path.
A shadow stirred.
A man. Tall, gaunt. His eyes, sunken and wild, gleamed in the gloom. He held a rusted pipe. A scavenger. Like Kael. But older. Desperate.
The man spotted Kael. His eye narrowed. He saw the child. The baby. The rust-stained blade. His gaze fixed on the blade. A glint of hunger. Not just for food. For an easy kill. For anything valuable.
"What's a runt like you doing out here?" the man rasped. His voice was hoarse. "And with that... trinket?" He gestured with the pipe. "Give it to me, boy. Or you'll learn what happens to those who hold what isn't theirs."
Kael didn't speak. He clutched Elian tighter. His small body tensed. A cold, alien stillness began to settle over him. Not fear. Not entirely. It was a sharpening. An awareness. Every shadow, every shift in the air, every tremor became acutely clear to him.
The man took a step closer. His pipe raised. A predatory grin stretched his thin lips. "You deaf, boy? I said give it!"
He lunged.
Kael didn't think. His body moved. An instinctive reaction. He dropped low, dodging the clumsy swing of the pipe. He felt a sudden, terrifying surge of pure, desperate will. A determination to survive.
The man, mid-swing, faltered. His eyes flickered. A flicker of confusion. The child before him wasn't screaming. Or cowering. Just utterly still. Unblinking. It was unnerving.
It was enough.
Kael's rusted blade, still in his grip, moved. Not with skill. Not with training. But with the pure, desperate instinct of a cornered animal. He swung it upwards.
The blade snagged. Not on flesh. But on the man's leg, catching the loose fabric of his trousers. The man stumbled back, cursing.
"Little demon!" he spat, regaining his balance. His hesitation vanished. He swung the pipe again, harder, faster.
Kael rolled. He pushed himself off the ground, a blur of motion. His single eye, wide and focused, tracked the pipe. He saw the arc. He felt the shift in the air.
The man grunted. He felt a sudden, profound discomfort. It wasn't physical. It was internal. A cold wave that made his stomach clench. His blood run cold. His breath hitched. He had faced many things in Dirtspire. But never a child like this. This felt... wrong. This felt like looking into a silent, bottomless well.
His eyes darted. Searching. Was something else there? A monster? He saw only the small boy. Holding his baby brother. The rusted blade. But the feeling... it was immense. Suffocating. Not from power, but from the child's sheer, unyielding will.
The man stumbled back again. His pipe wavered. A bead of sweat trickled down his temple, not from exertion, but from a sudden, profound terror that bloomed in his chest. He saw Kael's single eye, unblinking, utterly indifferent. No fear. Only a chilling, unbreakable resolve.
This child wasn't prey. He was something else.
The scavenger, his face now pale, dropped the pipe. He turned. And ran. Vanishing into the darkness. His fear propelled him faster than any injury.
Kael stood still. His small chest heaved. Elian whimpered softly. The alley was silent once more.
He looked at the rusted blade. It was still in his hand. The same blade the warrior had given him. He hadn't thought. He had simply acted. Brutal. Instinctual.
He knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that he would do it again. For Elian. For survival.
The first kills hadn't happened yet. But the path was set. The raw, desperate struggle for existence had begun to etch its mark. The whispers about him would begin soon. The boy who survived the Cleansing. The boy who simply refused to die.